in the last couple dev logs I think (if I am reading it right) Josh is looking for a way to easiely post a purchase order with detail that works like a negotiation; value points related to parts of the order (going to use ship purchase because it's what he is referencing in the logs).

Valuation on relative properties, not absolute. Just like research, valuation operates on 'modifiers,' not absolute numbers. I want to spend 20K on a new transfer unit. Implicit in the 20K is the approximate magnitude of the attributes, I don't need to say that. What I do need to say is that I care more about range than rate, so I am only interested in transfer units that have 1.5x to 2x relative range. Again, this goes hand-in-hand with how research operates.

So I was thinking about it as I was reading (didn't get online all weekend this weekend) this morning and here is a description of what occurred to me as a possible solution:

Slider bars with a range adjustable slider. List out the components of the item desired (I seem to recall the system works on a nodal component base data set anyway) and a numeric value as to how much it impacts your purchasing desire (how much you will pay) in a 1 through how ever many components there are, with 0 being you don't care, such as (for ships):

being that it's likely there will only be a few critical components people will be concerned with making sure are present 1-20 as a standard valuation number (far right) may be fine. and of course default shoudl be 0 so you only have to value the parts you care about.

This seems like an intuitive way to make orders quick and detailed to me, I am sure there are ways to make this more uniform and applicable to all tangible variable purchases but this is my thought and figured I would run it by the crowd, and Josh if he sees it, to see what everyone thought.

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" ~Confucius